In 2024, Elon Musk’s xAI built the world’s largest AI data center in South Memphis. What began with grand promises of jobs and development for South Memphis residents quickly followed a pattern all too familiar: gas turbines running without permits, pollution pouring into an already overburdened neighborhood, and a government that looked the other way.

Both the U.S. and the EU are retreating from efforts to regulate the risks of AI. With growing economic nationalism and AI spending driving markets, the two sides are competing for AI innovation instead of collaborating to address AI risks and supporting trust in the technology. The Trump administration’s latest Executive Order on AI seeks to preempt state laws without a federal framework already in place, leaving a gap in regulation. Meanwhile, the EU is scaling back the AI Act. Big Tech stands to gain from the deregulatory pushes, while the populations of the U.S. and Europe absorb the risks.

The Brazilian Presidency had promised that COP30 in Belém would be the “COP of truth” and “COP of implementation”, held in the spirit of Mutirão with the global community working together to face the climate emergency. It faced a reckoning instead.